Floyd is not built for snow

Another weekend, another phantom report that the Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao fight is sealed.

Just as one gets one's hopes up, Mayweather comes along and pours cold water on the claim.

As much as I have tried to convince myself that I don't care about this fight any more, I guess I do, but that's really because I would love to see Mayweather get beaten.

I believe Tommy Hearns would have bombed Mayweather, Roberto Duran would have slaughtered him and as for Stanley Ketchel, well, that would have been a mismatch.

Growing up I frequently heard my elders use the adage "They just don't make 'em like they used to".

That's what was uttered when championship fights were reduced from 15 rounds to 12, or when reserves were allowed in rugby, and so on.

But in many cases this is sheer nonsense. After all, evolution improves things, and sports science has made us stronger and tougher.

Take rugby as an example. Danie Gerber, as great as he was, would surely have to adjust to the intensity of the present game if he were to be teleported in a time machine from 1984 to the present.

I have no doubt he would still be a legend, but he'd have to adapt.

Yet that adage does still have some validity, as I was reminded by the saga that unfolded in the Southern Ocean last week when an Australian trawler got trapped in pack ice.

A US Coast Guard icebreaker went in and freed the ship, effectively saving the crew of the Antarctic Chieftain, which didn't have sufficient supplies to last the winter.

Valerian Albanov, the Russian author of In the Land of White Death, was the navigator on a ship that got caught in the polar ice of the Arctic in 1912.

They had supplies to survive the winter, but when the ice hadn't thawed the next summer, Albanov realised they would never get free.

With GPS technology yet to be invented and aeroplanes only a decade or so old, their only chance of survival would be leaving the ship and trekking to land, which was not fully charted in those days.

With permission from the captain, Albanov and 13 other crewmen set off with sleds, skis, kayaks and some supplies.

On the first day's journey they ended up further north than when they had started, because the pack ice was moving faster north than they had walked south.

But Albanov knew that at some point they would suddenly find themselves rushing south into the sea, and if they weren't near land at that point they would be in trouble.

And so began his incredible adventure of negotiating perilous ice, hunting seals for food and, after things got tough, tracking down some mutinous sailors who had stolen all their provisions.

In the end, Albanov and just one other crewman survived, returning to Europe some four years after first setting off; no sign of their ship was ever found, and it was surmised that it was probably crushed by the ice.

Mayweather's defensive skills might be better than the boxers of old, but his attitude certainly isn't.

In his case, they don't make 'em like they used to.